Videodrome

"Death to Videodrome! Long live the new flesh!"

"After all, there is nothing real outside our perception of reality, is there? You can see that, cant you?"

"The battle for the mind of North America will be fought in the video arena — the videodrome. The television screen is the retina of the minds eye. Therefore the television screen is part of the physical structure of the brain. Therefore whatever appears on the television screen emerges as raw experience for those who watch it. Therefore television is reality, and reality is less than television."

"I am the video word made flesh."

"First it controls your mind... then it destroys your body."

"Videodrome is a bioelectrical addiction. Videodrome is the ultimate addiction."

"Your head, we have you head in the box."

"The movie goes into more than the relatively simple issue of morality, like the ways in which television does alter us physically. Its what Marshall McLuhan was talking about — TV as an extension of our nervous systems and our senses."

"[handing Bianca the videotape] Careful... it bites."

"First it controlled her mind, then it destroyed her body... Long live the new flesh!"

"I was once on a talk show with a psychiatrist who worked at the Clark Institute with criminals. He had seen my film, Videodrome and said to me, “I’m almost afraid to be sitting here next to you.” He was totally mystified as to how I could empathize with those states of mind and he obviously, could not. It is mostly intuitive with me. One of the reasons I make a movie is that I’m then in a position where I have to analyze and I enjoy that process.*My images come out of the process of making film. I do really think that movies work on the level of dream logic. However realistic or narrative they might like to think they are, they are dreamlike."

"North Americas getting soft, padrone. And the rest of the world is getting tough. Very, very tough. Were entering savage new times, and were going to have to be pure... and direct... and strong... if were gonna survive them. Now, you and this, uh, cesspool you call a television station... and, uh, your people who wallow around in it... and, uh, your viewers... who watch you do it— youre rotting us away from the inside. We intend to stop that rot."